In the tenth hour of the 26th day of Sarenith in the year 4713, a group of adventurers and scions of the Amatatsu family sat in the vaults below the Imperial Palace and discussed their change of plans. It did not take them long to turn them into action.
The Oracle spent several minutes casting a spell, and when it was done he spoke with Amatatsu Ameiko in her safe house, instructing her to take the Seal and come with the Paladin Hatsue to the Palace. Using potions to make them invisible, and the spell cast by the Oracle earlier that morning, they assumed the form of clouds on the wind and streaked across the sky. With yet another spell he had cast that same hour, the Oracle tracked their progress. The hastily-formed plan would require precise timing, but he knew how quickly they traveled and how far they had yet to go. The rest was simple math. The scions would be ready before they arrived.
The blue-skinned, purple-haired Alchemist, now magically shrunk to an even smaller size, made himself invisible, and with the Oracle’s spell he, too, turned into a misty could and ascended the stairs to the main floor and slipped outside. There he rose, hugging the walls of the palace until he found another arrow slit on the floor of the throne room. The cloud seeped back inside and floated along the ceiling until he found his desired spot behind the Jade Throne. He froze in place, and slowly began resuming his true form.
He saw the Jade Regent, Soto Takahiro, sitting impatiently on the Jade Throne in his jade armor, his face obscured by the ridiculous jade mask. Next to him, but not making eye contact, was Takahiro’s estranged lover Renshii Meida, shimmering, protective spirits swirling around her. In the center of the hall was the angry, human form of the oni Anamurumon, winds howling about him in a personal hurricane. The Alchemist could also see that there was one missing: the tengu man known as The Raven Prince was nowhere in sight.
The three figures were nervous. They suspected the usurpers were in the palace–perhaps someone heard sounds coming from the vaults, or spies had gotten word of their movements that morning–but they did not know where, exactly, they were. Out of caution, they had prepared their defenses and simply waited. The scions and the upstart Amatatsu would have to come to them, after all. To take the Throne, she must sit on it bearing the Seal and Takahiro would not give her that chance.
For the adventurers in the vaults below, the wait was the signal. A quarter of a minute ticked by, and several spells were cast. A moment later, the Bard used the exact distance and direction given to him by the Oracle to teleport the now-invisible forms of the scions precisely fifteen feet below the Alchemist with a soft pop.
The Bard was disoriented on arrival, but the others were not. Taking advantage of their surprise assault, the Rogue acted first and advanced on the throne where Takahiro sat. The Oracle cast a spell to bolster his allies while the Cavalier imbibed a potion that made him difficult to target. Finally, the Wizard pulled a nearly flawless diamond from her pouch and cast a spell, desiring that the Seer, Renshii Meida, falter when next targeted by magic. The diamond crumbled to dust as her wish was granted.
And then the scions attacked. They completely ignored the Typhoon Guard and struck at the leadership. The Rogue slashed deep into Takahiro, spilling the first blood of the battle as her sword cut deep, over and over, in a punishing assault. The Cavalier closed on him and issued a challenge, bringing the flaming Suishen crashing down onto the samurai. This, too, penetrated his armor, but Takahiro stubbornly refused to yield the throne. He struck back at the Cavalier three times, and his armor released a blast of pure force to accent his rage. Yet the Cavalier stood steadfast as well.
Below the Jade Throne, Media watched as red bloomed across Takahiro’s body, but her anger from their fight the previous night still seethed deep within her. He had tarnished her honor with his philandering, and worse, her shame had been made public. He had raged at her in turn, having learned that she was hiding a pregnancy…with his child. Yet she was even more angered at having learned of his demonic heritage. The words “you do not want to birth a baby with claws and horns” were written on the letter she read that day, and they were forever burned in her eyes. So she saw the blades cut deep into the father of her child, and she turned her back on him, instead summoning a spirit of pure force to fight alongside her.
But Meida was fighting the wrong battle. The Wizard removed a second diamond from her pouch, and spoke another wish. As this diamond, too, crumbled to dust, a look of shock appeared on Meida’s face as her body turned to stone. A new statue now decorated the great hall.
As this unfolded, arrows coated with deadly poison flew from the Oracle to Anamurumon, five in total, embedding deep within the oni’s flesh. Each was attuned to the Oni’s true nature and they left terrible wounds on his body. Though the poison was a mere annoyance that was easily brushed off, the oni raged at the indignity of having been struck at all.
He discarded his human form, and a wind yai oni now towered over the battle. With nary a gesture, lightning leapt from his hideous, third eye and arced from his fingertips in a bright flash that was followed by a loud crack and the smell of ozone. But the scions knew what they would be fighting and had prepared: each was struck, but not one was injured.
Outside, the Typhoon Guard left their posts and descended on the Great Hall to join the battle. Some of them may have been able to see through invisibility, but the great conflict in the throne room took all their attention so none of them noticed the vaporous forms of Hatsue and the Amatatsu heir as they flowed inside. Ameiko floated across the ceiling towards Takahiro, ready to take the Jade Throne once he fell.
Down below, the Bard waved his hands and dispelled the spiritual being of force that had been summoned by Meida. And it was at this moment that The Raven Prince struck. He simply appeared next to the Bard and lashed out with his tsuruhashi. Yet, the blow came not with the edge, but rather the flat of its blade. He was serving his contract to the letter, but it was clear who he thought would emerge victorious in this fight. The Bard, for his part, was well protected, and this strike bounced harmlessly off his armor.
The Bard responded by deftly disarming the tengu. Holding the tsuruhashi, he glared at the Raven Prince and said, “Don’t do that again.” Then he held the blade out, offering it back to its owner.
As the Raven Prince considered this, the Oracle launched another barrage of arrows at the now monstrous oni form, and again they struck true. This time, however, the onslaught was too much, and Anamurumon fell to the floor, dead.
At the same instant, the Rogue unleashed another furious assault on Takahiro, but his resolve held and he withstood her flurry of strikes, his tenacity leaving her frustrated. She knew those blows should have felled him, yet still he stood, defiant.
The Alchemist, meanwhile, had finally regained his material form. He casually surveyed the scene, then made up his mind. A series of bombs flew into the air: the first exploded on the lifeless corpse of Anamurumon for good measure, and the second and third landed on the Jade Regent.
Takahiro fell in a burst of flames. Not thirty seconds had passed, and the fight was over. The Raven Prince took his tsuruhashi back from the Bard and said, simply, “It seems I am no longer employed.”
Behind him, the wind-form spell had been dismissed, and Amatatsu Ameiko now sat in Takahiro’s place. She declared, “I am Amatatsu Ameiko, the rightful Empress of Minkai! The reign of oni is over!” holding the Seal in her hands.
There was no fanfare, but it was clear to all who were there what had happened. Most of the Typhoon Guard turned and ran, but a few defied reason and continued their advance. The Wizard was smiling as she walked up beside The Raven Prince. Pulling out a third diamond, she handed it to the tengu and said, “Would you like a new job? Several oni seem to be threatening the Empress of Minkai.”